The award season for 2024 has officially come to an end with a spectacular 96th Academy Awards. The past year had been phenomenal for movies, with some of the best films and performances from some of the biggest names in Hollywood.
The 2024 Oscars concluded with a fitting celebration for some of the best in cinema in the past year and, to nobody’s surprise, featured moments that we’ll be talking about in the weeks ahead.
The ceremony was kicked off with a monologue by fourth-time Oscars host comedian Jimmy Kimmel. The mostly hilarious speech was marked with jokes about the writers and actors strike, Madame Webb and Donald Trump.
The most important highlight of the night was, of course, the winners. Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer was one of the big winners of the night, taking home six trophies, including best director, best actor (for Cillian Murphy) and best supporting actor (for Robert Downey Jr.). Barbie might have struck gold at the box office but only managed to snag one win out of the eight nominations at the Oscars this year with Billie Eilish’s ‘What Was I Made For’ being awarded the best original song.
Speaking of Barbenheimer, Emily Blunt and Ryan Gosling traded hilarious barbs onstage about their respective movies. Blunt quipped with a, “The way this awards season’s turned out, it wasn’t that much of a rivalry, so, just let it go,” to which Gosling replied, “It’s true, you guys are doing very well, congratulations, but I think I’ve figured out why they called it Barbenheimer and didn’t call it Oppenbarbie. I think you guys are at the tail end of it because you were riding Barbie’s coattails all summer.”
The La La Land actor also mesmerised the audience with a rendition of “I’m Just Ken’, a Best Original Song nominee, where he was joined by fellow Kens Simu Liu, Scott Evans, Ncuti Gatwa and Kingsley Ben-Adir and musicians Mark Ronson, Slash, and Wolfgang Van Halen.
Another delightful highlight of the night was the Oscars bringing back the ‘Fab Five’ actors-on-actors format for the four acting awards. To present the awards for best actor, actress, supporting actor and supporting actress, five previous winners of each category were brought onstage to present the nominees and announce the winners. Instead of the usual highlight reel of all the nominees, each of the previous winner spoke about one of the nominees.
Amidst all the festivities, celebrities acknowledged the ongoing attack in Gaza by wearing red pins atop their red carpet finery to show support for a ceasefire.
Last, but not least, was Messi the dog. The scene-stealing canine from Best International Feature winner Anatomy of the Fall took home all the hearts by being the best boy of the night!
What was your favourite moment of the night?
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